The present invention relates to devices for filling sandbags in general and to power assisted portable devices for filling sandbags in particular.
Sandbags, which have been used since at least the late 1700s, consist of bags, typically of burlap, cotton and most commonly polypropylene, which are filled with sand or soil and used for flood control, the construction of military fortifications, and even for low-cost housing. A typical sandbag is constructed of circularly woven polypropylene tape and has dimensions of 14″×26″ and is designed to hold 50 pounds of sand. Empty sandbags are typically stored locally in anticipation of flooding, or shipped to the site when flooding occurs. The bags are filled and stacked at the site of flooding to direct flood-waters, or create barriers to flood-waters. Sandbags are typically filled by teams of two or three persons, employing shovels and a pile of sand. Sandbags can be filled and placed at a rate of 15-20 bags per hour per person.
Because filling sandbags is typically time critical as a result of rising floodwaters, and the number of laborers available may be limited, many devices for speeding the sandbag filling process have been developed, ranging from a simple scoop which allows a single person to more easily fill a sandbag, to large fully automatic machines. Bag filling devices which are not power assisted may increase bag filling efficiency but they remain limited by the amount of work a person can do over a period of many hours. On the other hand, the larger and more expensive a piece of equipment for filling sandbags is, the fewer devices will generally be available, and if they are available they generally must be moved from greater distances to the site of flooding. Smaller specialized equipment which mounts in the bucket of a front-end loader or BOBCAT® vehicle such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,510,365, or freestanding devices such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,237 are known, but simpler lower-cost standalone systems are needed if locally available sandbag filling aids are to be more widely available.